Implementing an AGV System
Design
It is during this period of time that details of the system configuration and operation are developed. The designing stage actually begins before a vendor is selected. It follows immediately after a concept is decided upon. But it runs through order placement and involves close customer/vendor interaction to finalize the system to satisfy the contract requirements.
Concepting Pitfalls |
Resulting Problems |
Solutions |
| The project engineer/manager develops the project detail independent of the future users of the system on the plant floor. |
System will require redesign/rework if user input is lacking and resulting design is inadequate. System may lack the critical support it will need in subsequent stages. |
Don’t Work in a Vacuum |
Don’t Work in a Vacuum
Many people believe that the only one you can count on is yourself. In many cases that is probably true. But in designing an AGVS system, it is a sure way to get into trouble fast. Lack of input and feedback during the design stage alienates people. If it’s your fellow engineers/managers, they perceive the project as your project. If it’s the system’s ultimate users, they view the system as something someone else is forcing them to use.
The ideal atmosphere is to have it be "our" system that "we" want to use. Creating this climate is essential to the success of an AGVS system.
Before a contract is let, the system design effort is primarily an in-house effort. The user/project engineer will prepare a preliminary guidepath layout, description of operations and perform an initial requirement analysis. User input is critical to this effort.
Input at this stage can be obtained through meetings with department supervisors, shop employees and fellow staff. From the concepting stage, some general knowledge about the AGVS system already exists. Comments and suggestions from other employees will go a long way towards resolving path layout requirements, operator interfaces and system management issues. This is a good way to build the support that the system will need when it gets into operation.
After the vendor is selected, the system design continues with considerable vendor input. This creates additional information, mostly in the form of technical specifications and guidelines. AGVS systems are not based on magic. How they work can and should be understood by the user project engineer/manager.
Two influences are at work during this user/vendor design stage. First, the user can place demands on the system design that stretch or exceed the vendor’s equipment/technology limits. Second, the vendor can be too inflexible with respect to the user’s needs. What is required is a mutual understanding of each other’s responsibilities and limitations.
Path layout is a good example where both user and vendor must often compromise. Often the user wants to put stop stations or sidespurs in areas where there is not initially enough space. If it is an AGVS train system, the user sometimes lays out a sidespur path on paper that is only as long as the AGV train itself. No additional space is provided for entering, straightening out, stopping or exiting the sidespur. Or there might be assumptions made that a vendor’s equipment can operate in a certain way and it can not.
The vendor can be guilty of being too limiting. Perhaps with some minor operational changes some of the initial, apparently impossible user’s desires may actually be possible. Maybe the sidespur needs to be made longer, but with a slower speed, it does not have to be as long as initially stated.
To a great extent the design stage relationship between the user and vendor is a partnership. There is room for give and take, but only if each attempts to understand the other’s needs. Neither party can afford to "work in a vacuum". |
